


If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon?

by bacchusofficial



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Carrying Your Friends, Fuzzy Jackets, Gun Violence, M/M, Stakeouts, regular violence (warren kepler amiright)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 14:01:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13237236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacchusofficial/pseuds/bacchusofficial
Summary: "Give me your gun," said Kepler, climbing to his feet and holding out his hand. Jacobi looked confused, but handed the pistol over, anyway.Kepler waited until the voices became clear enough to just barely make out words, then aimed the gun at Jacobi's head.





	If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon?

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know what this is and at this point i'm too afraid to ask.

 

_ From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both. -Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince.  _

* * *

 

It was freezing. It had been freezing since they'd begun their stakeout four hours prior, and it would continue to be freezing until they returned to the warmth of their car, parked a good mile's hike south down the hill they were posted on.

Kepler had long since accepted his fate as a human popsicle. It wasn't like there was anything he could do to change it. And, anyway, there was nothing like below-zero temperatures to wake you up in the morning.

(It didn't hurt that his coat was two-thousand dollars worth of insulation, and that he'd stuck hand warmers in his gloves before slipping them on).

Beside him, Jacobi was shivering. It wouldn't be long before he started muttering to himself, too, just so Kepler would tell him to shut up. How long had they been out? Three, four hours? Kepler gave it thirty seconds; he counted them down in his head, looking intently out the scope of his sniper. The target was another of Goddard's enemies, on vacation at his hunting lodge.

_Three. Two. One_.

"It's fucking freezing out here," Jacobi muttered to himself, shifting in his thick winter coat to tug his arms around himself. "Why the fuck would you have a winter home in the middle of Montana? Who  _wants_  to be this cold? Makes no—“

"Mr. Jacobi," Kepler interrupted, right on cue. Though his voice was at a murmur, it still had more than enough power to make Jacobi's mouth snap shut. He was so predictable, so easy to control. It made something like flames lick at Kepler's ribs. "I don't need to explain to you why now isn't a good time to start flailing around like an orangutan, right?"

"Sir, we've been waiting for hours. Are you sure he's even—“

"Keep. Your voice. Down."

Grumbling incoherently, Jacobi adjusted his position and scowled at nothing. He was to Kepler's right, sitting with his back against a large rock so he could keep lookout in case someone decided to go for a stroll looking for frostbite and ended up finding Kepler lying flat on his belly with a sniper trained on the house.

Kepler waited three seconds, and Jacobi started muttering again.

"How is someone supposed to hear us from all the way down there?"

Kepler gave him a quick sharp look before returning to the scope. "The wind, Jacobi," he explained with a facade of patience. "It carries sound. You know this. I've read your personnel file. I know you passed second grade, at least."

_"You read my file?"_

"Yes?" Kepler didn't add  _Duh_. That would be unprofessional. But it would take a real idiot not to hear it in his tone.

He could hear Jacobi start to get mad, and then he could hear all the fight leave him in a sigh. Kepler, face hidden by the collar of his coat, smiled.

To their left, there were footsteps, and faint voices. Kepler stiffened and sat up, head trained toward the noise. Jacobi heard, too, and was no longer shivering. His hand closed around the pistol laid at his side, and he looked to Kepler for instruction. Kepler allowed himself a millisecond to bask in that expression, in the wide-eyed obedience that only Kepler could coax out of Jacobi, who was so stubborn he'd barely breathe if someone told him he should. The little flame in Kepler's chest howled like a forest fire.

Then he got back to work.

"Give me your gun," said Kepler, climbing to his feet and holding out his hand. Jacobi looked confused, but handed the pistol over, anyway.

Kepler waited until the voices became clear enough to just barely make out words, then aimed the gun at Jacobi's head.

_"Hey!"_ Kepler shouted. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Jacobi's eyes went wide. His mouth worked uselessly. Kepler gave him a look that said,  _Follow_. At this point, that was all it took.

The footsteps broke into a run, and two men burst onto the scene; both middle aged, wearing hunting gear, carrying rifles—one, Kepler noted with inner glee, their target. So that was why he'd not been home. He'd gotten an earlier start than even Kepler and Jacobi, the sneaky bastard. Well, it didn't matter, now.

"What's going on?" the target's friend asked. Kepler noted his vocal pattern, the way he stood, the way he held his gun, and adopted an approximation of it in his own stance and voice.

"Found this guy snooping y'all's lodge," he said, gesturing at Jacobi with the pistol. Jacobi's hands shot up, still staring at Kepler like he'd grown another head. Really, you pull a gun on a guy and he immediately started thinking it was personal.

(Kepler was careful not to look into Jacobi's face, not wanting to see the panic, the fear in it.  _I won't hurt you_ , he wanted to say—to scream. But he couldn't say that under any circumstances, let alone these.)

"You seen him before?" prompted Kepler.

The target had his eyes on the sniper rifle set up next to Jacobi. The gears in his head spun and locked into realization, clicked over to panic, then to relief. Idiot. "No," said the target. "No I—never seen him."

"Christ," said the target's friend. "It's lucky you found him, boy—“ Kepler's mouth twitched. “—looks like he was up to somethin' sinister."

Kepler grimaced, looking down at Jacobi. If he pulled the trigger, if his finger twitched, if something went wrong in the slightest, a bullet would go right through Jacobi's skull. "Well?" Kepler demanded. "What are you doing here?"

Jacobi blinked about ten times. “I—“ he started. "I was just... uh... doing some. Hunting. You know."

Kepler raised an eyebrow.  _Really?_ It was bad even for Jacobi. But there was a reason Kepler did all the talking.

"With a  _sniper_?" the target's friend demanded.

Jacobi's teeth bared in half a smile, half a grimace. "Yeah."

_Now why did he have to mouth off like that_ , Kepler wondered, as the target's friend's jaw tightened and he raised his rifle. Before the man could cock his gun, Kepler brought the handle of his pistol down on the back of Jacobi's head, and he was out like a light. Kepler knelt down and gripped his chin, looking him over, careful not to let any concern leak into his expression (that part was easy. Kepler had a lot of practice). Jacobi was fine. He'd be sore for days, but it was better than being dead.

Speaking of being dead.

Kepler turned to the target and his friend.

"He's out, gentlemen," he said. "Should be safe to call the authorities." He stood, shaking his head mildly. "Man, it's a good thing y'all weren't home."

"I'll say," said the target, rubbing the back of his head and ogling Jacobi's prone figure. He froze, frowned, locked eyes with Kepler. "Hold on. Who did you say you—“

A bullet rang neatly through his skull, and he was dead before his knees started to buckle. The target's friend went white as a sheet, then bright red, but even as he rounded on Kepler, Kepler delivered him a swift kick directly to the throat and the rifle fell from his hands, and he dropped to his knees clutching his neck and gasping for air.

Kepler stood over him, smiling with only his teeth.

"You know," he said, conversationally. "You shouldn't've tried to shoot him." He looked briefly over his shoulder at Jacobi, still unconscious, thanks to the man currently on his knees. "Maybe then, you'd've had an easy death, like your friend, there." Kepler gave him a half-smile and a little shrug. "Oh well!"

The man choked, eyes wide and watery. Kepler broke his nose with a well-aimed punch. Then he broke all the fingers on his right hand–slowly, one by one, while the man's breath gurgled and rasped as he struggled to get air through his trachea, while he tried to scream but nothing would come out. It was only when the man's face was purple that Kepler finally took mercy, and shot him in the temple.

Kepler stood, dusted the dirt off his knees, and, humming a cheerful tune, went over to disassemble the sniper and tuck it into their duffle bag, along with the pistol. He slung the strap over his shoulder, then faced the problem of Jacobi.

He crouched beside him and brushed the hair out of his face. He didn't usually allow himself things like that, but Jacobi was unconscious, so what could the harm be?

(The harm, he knew, was in indulging himself just often enough that the fire he kept locked away could never quite die out, like he knew it should. But Kepler liked to pretend it couldn't burn him, anyway.)

"Jacobi," he crooned, laying a gentle hand on Jacobi's cheek. His mouth hung open, and a little drool was on his chin. "Jac _o_ bi."

Nothing. Kepler shrugged, and slapped him across the face with a gloved hand.

Jacobi's eyes snapped open and his whole body jerked, hand flying to his face—“ _Ouch, Jesus Christ_ —“

"It's time to go," said Kepler, moving into a crouch. "Can you stand?"

"Yeah, of course I can stan--" Trying to sit up, Jacobi's eyes went fuzzy, and his hand went to the lump at the back of his head. "Fuck," he groaned. "Did you have to--"

"Yes," said Kepler. "He was going to shoot you."

"Who was—“

Kepler gestured vaguely in the direction of the two bodies laying off to their right. Jacobi blinked.

"Oh," he said, looking dazed. Kepler carefully kept his expression neutral.

"Time to go," he repeated. Jacobi winced.

"Sir," he said, hesitantly, "I don't think I can—aRGH!"

Kepler tucked his arms around Jacobi's waist and lifted him in a fireman's hold, then started walking down the forested hill towards their car.

"Sir. Sir.  _Sir_." Jacobi's protests got progressively more and more annoyed the further downhill they got. " _Major Kepler._ Major.  _Hey_!"

"Careful, Mr. Jacobi," said Kepler. "The wind, remember? It carries your voice."

“Just so everyone knows,” Jacobi announced to the wind. "I am not okay with thi—ouch!"

Kepler's innocent tone betrayed nothing of the fact he’d just bounced Jacobi on his shoulder. Not that it had been on purpose, of course—hills were slippery, and covered in rocks! "I'm sorry," he said. "Would you rather walk?"

"I would, actually, but  _someone_  hit me over the head with a gun, so..."

"How unfortunate," said Kepler. "You know, if you'd rather, I could carry you like a baby."

Jacobi didn't respond, but Kepler felt him tuck his head against his back, so it didn't jostle as much. Kepler pretended that the reason he smiled was his victory in the argument, not the added pressure at his back.

When they finally reached the car, Kepler dropped Jacobi and helped him into the front seat. Jacobi's cheeks were pink from the cold, and he immediately crossed his arms, like a child. He was such a ridiculous man. Kepler fussed over his jacket until Jacobi batted his hands away.

"For the record," began Kepler, as he always began apologies. "I'm sorry I knocked you out."

"Yeah, well," said Jacobi, buckling his seatbelt. "Shit happens, sir."

Jacobi's hood had fallen during his ride. It was one of those ridiculous, fur-lined things, that made him look like he was trekking the arctic circle and not the Montana frontier. Actually, the thought reminded Kepler of a story—he wondered if he'd told Jacobi that one, yet. It was a good one. There were their plans for the ride back.

Without even thinking about it, Kepler found himself reaching for Jacobi's hood and pulling it up around his head, tucking it just-so. He allowed himself to do it because it was just enough of a power move to be safe, to not give too much away.

God forbid Jacobi find out Kepler was in love with him.

The thought came out of nowhere, and made the fire in Kepler's chest claw right up his throat, made him freeze where he stood.

Jacobi's brown eyes narrowed slightly, looking at him intently. Kepler stared back, unable to look away.

He wasn't in love with Jacobi. That would be ridiculous. Kepler didn't love anyone. He didn't know how—never had, or had forgotten. Whatever. It didn't matter. The point was he didn't. Couldn't. Shouldn't. Didn't. 

"Fuck," Kepler said, to himself, then started to laugh, quietly at first, then building slowly into ugly guffaws—

"Um. Sir?" said Jacobi. "Are you..."

Kepler shut the passenger door and went around back to stow the guns in the trunk, still laughing. He only stopped when he climbed in the driver's seat and buckled in, slamming the door and rubbing his eyes. 

"Kepler, seriously," Jacobi said, as Kepler started the car. "You sound like you're about to unveil your dastardly plan for world domination, and while I _have_ been anticipating it for about two years, now, I'm gonna be a little disappointed if there's no powerpoint slides involved—“

"Jacobi," Kepler said, and Jacobi stopped talking. He always stopped talking when Kepler started talking. "Did you think I was going to shoot you?" 

A pause. An incredulous expression. Then, "What?"

"Back there. Just now. Did you think I'd do it?"

"I..." Jacobi chewed his lip. He really looked ridiculous, in that jacket. He said, deliberately, "I don't know, sir."

"Sure you do. It's a simple question. Did you think I'd do it?"

He had on that expression of his, the  _What does he want me to say?_  expression. Usually, Kepler thought it was funny, but right now he just wanted the truth.

"Just answer the question, Jacobi."

"Yes," said Jacobi, without pause this time, forcing himself to look Kepler in the eye. "I did, sir."

Kepler tilted his head, searching his face for some kind of signal that Jacobi knew something he shouldn't, because just because it had taken Kepler this long to figure it out didn't mean it would take Jacobi that long. Jacobi often caught things Kepler failed to notice, little details that didn't quite make sense in the big picture; that was why they were such a good team.

A long, unbroken silence. A long, unbroken stare. Kepler found nothing.

"Good," he said, finally, and started the car.

"Oh-kay," said Jacobi, sarcastically. "That's not creepy."

"I don't remember inviting feedback on my response, Mr. Jacobi."

"Well, I don't remember inviting you to point a gun at my head,  _Major_."

"Oh, for God's sake, I said I was sorry—“

"Yeah, and then you said it was a good thing I thought you'd pull the trigger. What the _fuck_ is that supposed to mean?"

"Stand down, Jacobi," Kepler warned, in that low, dangerous voice he used for emergencies, and just like always, it worked. 

For about four seconds. 

"No, you know what? I can understand why you'd do it. It was the mission, right? I get that. But you can't just say something like—like  _that_  and expect me to—“

Kepler yanked the keys out of the ignition and threw open the door.

Jacobi stopped. 

"...Sir?"

"Get out of the car, Jacobi," said Kepler in a flat voice, and shut the door. 

In the trunk, the pistol was right at the top of the duffle bag, easy to find. Kepler fiddled with it, then walked back to the front of the car, where Jacobi waited with crossed arms and an _I'm-not-worried-except-I'm-definitely-worried_ expression, one that increased twofold when he saw the gun in Kepler's hand, and tenfold when he handed the gun to Jacobi. 

"Point the gun at my head, Jacobi," he said. 

Jacobi recoiled. " _What?_ " 

Kepler stood back, and waited. He waited a long time, ignoring the war of emotions flashing across Jacobi's face. Finally, the gun was aimed at his head. Jacobi's hand shook furiously. Kepler waited for it to stop before he spoke. 

"You see, Mr. Jacobi," he said, in his Long Story Short voice. "What makes this okay is the fact that I know you won't shoot me."

"This is so—“

" _Quiet_." Kepler waited, then smiled with only his mouth. "As I was saying, the fact that I know you won't shoot me is the difference between you and I, on a professional level."

"I don't understand."

"That's because you  _keep interrupting when I'm trying to explain_."

Jacobi's gun started to shake again. 

"The difference," said Kepler, "between you and I is that I know you  _wouldn't_  shoot me, and you know I  _would_  shoot you. That's what makes us work. That's what makes us  _us_." 

"Uh huh, yeah. That's great, sir. Can we please—“

"Now, if you had answered  _No_  to my earlier question, as in, _No, I didn't think you would shoot me_ , that would mean that, somewhere along the line, that dynamic shifted. And that, Mr. Jacobi, would be a Big. Problem."

"And the moral of this story?" asked Jacobi. His voice didn't shake, despite the deer-in-the-headlights look he had, and Kepler gave him silent props for that. 

"I'm so glad you asked," smiled Kepler. "The moral is we have an understanding, one that is fundamental to our professional dynamic, and that if we—either of us—deviates from that understanding, our job performance would suffer, which, in our line of work, could be deadly."

"Okay," said Jacobi, after taking a deep breath. "Sure, I get it now, sir."

"Good. Then get back in the—“

"You were worried."

Kepler paused. "Excuse me?"

The gun wasn't shaking, anymore. "You were worried something had changed."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Let me explain," said Jacobi. "I wasn't the problem with this 'dynamic' of yours." He gestured at Kepler with the gun. "You," he said, "Were the one worried  _you_ wouldn't shoot  _me_. Not the other way around, or vice versa, or whatever. It was you." 

Kepler's throat was suddenly made of sandpaper.

"It's  _true_ ," Jacobi laughed. "You knew you wouldn't shoot me, and because of whatever fucked up power dynamic you have set up in your head, you tried to make sure I thought otherwise. And you know what that means?"

"This is ridiculous—“

"It means you like me, Major. You like me enough to not wanna shoot me. It's almost heartwarming," said Jacobi. "In a creepy, psychopath murderer kind of way."

"Jacobi."

"What? You upset your fucked up gun analogy didn't work on me this time?"

Actually, Kepler was more annoyed at the goofy smile on Jacobi's face, and the way he adjusted his grip to inspect the gun. "Are there even any bullets in here?  _There aren’t!_ You know, you're so full of shit, sometimes—” 

He was so _happy_. And about what? Winning? What could possibly—

Oh. 

_Oh_. 

It was so simple. That smile? That was hope. Kepler had seen it before, in the eyes of people he’d killed not long after. 

Kepler had just thought of a way to get the upper hand again, one that meant it didn't matter how much Jacobi knew. Rule #12 of the SI-5 Handbook: in unfavorable circumstances, assess the situation and adapt any personal shortcomings preventing forward motion into weapons.

Love, thought Kepler, could be as good a weapon as anything.

Kepler stepped into his personal space and put his hand around the gun, around Jacobi's hand on the gun, eyes intent on Jacobi's face. Jacobi's breath caught. Good.

His hand tightened on the gun, and as he took it, he leaned down and said against Jacobi's cheek, "Get in the car, Mr. Jacobi."

Jacobi, without a word, did as he was told. Things were back to how they should be, then. Kepler smiled, taking his own time to return to the driver's seat. He tossed the pistol into the backseat and started the engine.

This was going to be so much fun. Why hadn’t Kepler thought of it earlier? 

**Author's Note:**

> A truth should exist,
> 
> it should not be used
> 
> like this. If I love you
> 
> is that a fact or a weapon?
> 
> \- Margaret Atwood, excerpt, "We are hard"


End file.
